Funding of science

Through history, the systems of economic support for scientists and their work have been important determinants of the character and pace of scientific research. The ancient foundations of the sciences were driven by practical and religious concerns and or the pursuit of philosophy more generally. From the Middle Ages until the Age of Enlightenment, scholars sought various forms of noble and religious patronage or funded their own work through medical practice. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many disciplines began to professionalize, and both government-sponsored "prizes" and the first research professorships at universities drove scientific investigation. In the 20th century, a variety of sources, including government organizations, military funding, patent profits, corporate sponsorship, and private philanthropies, have shaped scientific research.

Ancient science

Most early advances in mathematics, astronomy and engineering were byproducts of more immediate and practical goals. Surveying and accounting needs drove ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, and Indian mathematics, while calendars created for religious and agricultural purposes drove early astronomy.

Modern science owes much of its heritage to ancient Greek philosophers; influential work in astronomy, mechanics, geometry, medicine, and natural history was part of the general pursuit of philosophy. Architectural knowledge, especially in ancient Greece and Rome, also contributed to the development of mathematics, though the extent of the connection between architectural knowledge and more abstract mathematics and mechanics is unclear.

cience in the Middle Ages

16th and 17th centuries

Patronage

Most of the important astronomers and natural philosophers (as well as artists) in the 16th and 17th centuries depended on the patronage of powerful religious or political figures to fund their work. Patronage networks extended all the way from Emperors and Popes to regional nobles to artisans to peasants; even university positions were based to some extent on patronage. Scholarly careers in this period were driven by patronage, often starting in undistinguished universities or local schools or courts, and traveling closer or farther from centers of power as their fortunes rose and fell.

Patronage, and the desire for more, also shaped the work and publications of scientists. Effusive dedications to current or potential patrons can be found in almost every scholarly publication, while the interests of a patron in a specific topic was a strong incentive to pursue said topic—or reframe one's work in terms of it. Galileo, for example, first presented the telescope as a naval instrument to military- and commerce-focused Republic of Venice; when he sought the more prestigious patronage of the Medici court in Florence, he instead promoted the astronomical potential of the device (by naming the moons of Jupiter after the Medicis).

A scholar's patron not only supported his research financially, but also provided credibility by associating results with the authority of the patron. This function of patronage was gradually subsumed by scientific societies, which also initially drew upon their royal charters for authority but eventually came to be sources of credibility on their own.

elf-funded science

Self-funding and independent wealth were also crucial funding sources for scientists, from the Renaissance at least until the late 19th century. Many scientists derived income from tangential but related activities: Galileo sold instruments; Kepler published horoscopes; Robert Hooke designed buildings and built watches; and most anatomists and natural historians practiced or taught medicine. Those with independent means were sometimes known as gentlemen scientists.

Exploration and commerce

Military and commercial voyages, though not intended for scientific purposes, were especially important for the dramatic growth of natural historical knowledge during the "Age of Exploration." Scholars and nobles in sea-faring nations, first Spain and Portugal followed Italy, France and England, amassed unprecedented collections of biological specimens in cabinets of curiosities, which galvanized interest in diversity and taxonomy.

18th and 19th centuries

cientific societies

Professionalization

Industry

Research universities

1900–1945

Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's will directed that his vast fortune be utilized to establish prizes in the scientific fields of medicine, physics and chemistry as well as literature and peace. The Nobel prize served to provide financial incentives for scientists, elevated leading scientists to unprecedented visibility, and provided an example for other philanthropists of the industrial era to provide private sources of funding for scientific research and education. Ironically, it was not an era of peace that followed, but rather wars fought on unprecedented international scale that led to expanded state interest in the funding of science.

War research

The desire for more advanced weapons during World War I inspired significant investments in scientific research and applied engineering in both Germany and allied countries. World War II spawned even more widespread scientific research and engineering development in such fields as nuclear chemistry and nuclear physics as scientists raced to contribute to the development of radar, the proximity fuze, and the atomic bomb. In Germany, scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were being pushed by the leaders of the German war effort, including Adolf Hitler to evaluate the feasibility of developing atomic weapons in time for them to have an effect on the outcome of the war. Meanwhile, allied countries in the late 1930s and 1940s committed monumental resources to wartime scientific research. In the United States, these efforts were initially led by the National Defense Research Committee. Later, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, organized and administered by the MIT engineer Vannevar Bush, took up the effort of coordinating government efforts in support of science.

Following the United States entry into the second world war, the Manhattan Project emerged as a massive coordinated program to pursue development of nuclear weapons. Leading scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer, Glenn T. Seaborg, Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller were among the thousands of civilian scientists and engineers employed in the unprecedented wartime efforts. Entire communities were created to support the scientific and industrial aspects of the nuclear efforts in Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Hanford site in Washington and elsewhere. The Manhattan Project cost $$1,889,604,000 of which $69,681,000 was dedicated to research and development. The Manhattan Project is regarded as a major milestone in the trend towards government funding of big science.

1945–2000

Cold War science policy

During the Cold War era, the former Soviet Union invested heavily in science, attempting to match American achievements in nuclear science and its military and industrial applications. At the same time, the United States invested heavily in advancing its own nuclear research and development activities through a system of National laboratories managed by the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This era of competition in science and weapons development was known as the arms race. In October 1957, the Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik spurred a strong reaction in the United States and a period of competition between the two new world superpowers in a space race. In reaction to Sputnik, President Eisenhower formed the President's Science Advisory Commission (PSAC). It's November 1960 report, "Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government," was also known as the "Seaborg Report" after University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Glenn T. Seaborg, the 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. The Seaborg Report, which emphasized federal funding for science and pure research, is credited with influencing the federal policy towards academic science for the next eight years. PSAC member John Bardeen observed: "There was a time not long ago when science was so starved for funds that one could say almost any increase was desirable, but this is no longer true. We shall have to review our science budgets with particular care to [maintaining] a healthy rate of growth on a broad base and not see our efforts diverted into unprofitable channels." [ True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen," (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2002), p. 256 available online at http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309084083/html/256.html page viewed July 26, 2006. ]

President John F. Kennedy's appointment of Seaborg as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1961, put a respected scientist in a prominent government post where he could influence science policy for the next 11 years. In an address at Rice University in 1962, President Kennedy escalated the American commitment to the space program by identifying an important objective in the space race: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." [http://webcast.rice.edu/speeches/19620912kennedy.html] . Federal funding for both pure and applied research reached unprecedented levels as the era of Big Science continued throughout the Cold War, largely due to desires to win the arms race and space race, but also because of American desires to make advances in medicine.

tate funding cuts

Starting with the first Oil shock, an economic crisis hit the western world which made it more difficult for the states to maintain their uncritical funding of research and teaching. In the United Kingdom, the University Grants Committee started to lower their annual block grant for certain universities as soon as 1974. This was compounded by the access to power of the Thatcher government in 1979, who pledged a radical reduction of public spending. Between 1979 and 1981, more cuts in the block grant threatened universities and became opportunities seized by certain actors (heads of departments, vice-chancellors, etc.) for radical reorganisation and reorientation of the university's research.In 1970 in the United States, the Military Authorization Act forbade the DOD to support research unless it had "direct or apparent relationshipto a specific military function." This cut the ability of the government to fund basic research.

electivity

In order to administer severely depleted resources in a (theoretically) transparent manner, several selectivity mechanisms were developed through the 1980s and 1990s. In the United Kingdom, the funding cuts of 1984-1986 were accompanied by an assessment of the quality of research. This was done by estimating outside research income (from Research Councils and private business), as well as "informed prejudice" by the experts on the UGC. This became the first Research Assessment Exercise, soon to be followed by many others.

In France, selectivity is exercised through various different means. The CNRS evaluates regularly its units and researchers. For this reason, through the 1980s-90s, the government has attempted to privilege funding for researchers with a CNRS affiliation. With the creation of a contract system finalised in 1989, all research was submitted to approval of the university for inclusion in the contract passed with the Education Ministry. This allowed universities to select and privilege research and researchers they considered better than others (usually those associated to the CNRS or other grands corps de recherche).

Critics of selectivity systems decry their inherent biases. Many selectivity systems such as the RAE estimate the quality of research by its income (especially private income), and therefore favour expensive disciplines at the expense of cheap ones (see Matthew effect). They also favour more applied research (liable to attract business funding) at the expense of more fundamental science. These systems (as well as others such as bibliometry) are also open to abuse and fixing.

21st century

ee also

*Big Science
*National laboratories
*Space race
*Military funding of science
*Research and development
*Science policy

References